Portis: We're All on the Hot Seat

In a week when an unknown Redskin found himself, wittingly or unwittingly, insulting large numbers of fed-up Redskins fans, leave it to Clinton Portis to make things right. Clinton Portis of all people, the man who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on his birthday presents to himself, accidentally dumps teammates and coaches in the middle of oncoming traffic, and supposedly has a bi-lateral alliance with a certain local sports owner.

"It's just people growing tired," Portis said Wednesday, when asked about the teenage angst that's had D.C. sports fans wearing tight black t-shirts and writing weepy poetry this week. "You come out, you bring a family of four or five to come to a game, that's $500, and then you've got to eat and park. You're spending $700 a week to come out and see some entertainment, and you get there and it's really not a lot of entertainment. I think people just growing weary of that.

"We would love to make it exciting. You know, myself included. I'm sure everybody around here, nobody want to go out and score nine points. Everybody want touchdowns. Everybody want to go to the Pro Bowl. Everybody want to win....I really do think on paper we've got the most talented team in the NFL. It's just putting it together and making it work."

During Portis's weekly sessions, the reporters come and go, and so questions can sort of catapult from one topic to a second and a third before returning to an earlier point. And so a few minutes later, someone asked Portis whether Jim Zorn is on the hot seat, which brought us back to the macro existential despair thing.

"Hey, I feel like I'm on the hot seat," Portis said. "I can't speak on Coach Zorn, I don't know. I feel like I'm on the hot seat."

Why, came the follow-up.

"I mean, performance, as a team," Portis said. "We're getting booed coming off the field. So I think everybody in this organization on the hot seat. You know, I think you look at the owner, he on the verge of losing fans. You know, how long before people just give up and stop coming? You look at the players, and people want you out of here. You look at the coach, people want you out of here. So who's not on the hot seat? Until we come out and play to our potential, I think everybody on the hot seat."

There has not been a more honest or accurate quote from anyone in the Redskins organization this season, with the possible exception of "It is what it is" or "A win is a win." Though I guess some would argue that "on the verge of" was an unnecessary addition to that sentence.

Anyhow, just in case you were worried that Portis was straight mainlining the comments from Extreme Skins and then spitting them back to the media, he was asked what the team needs to do to play to its potential. And here, he kind of mentioned that you, in particular, Dear Reader, don't know the answer to this question.

"You know, everybody's got the answers to every thing," he said. "And you really don't. I really wish you could take some of these people and put 'em on the field and let them try to execute, let them go and get their bell rung, let them pick up a blitz, let them try to catch a pass in traffic, let them be Jason Campbell and sit back and try to throw a pass while pressure is on. And I really would love to see how they execute.

"Because I think a lot of people from the outside looking in, you know, everybody feel like they know football. But you can go and pick up a joystick on Madden and play the computer and realize your coaching really is not what you think it is. Oh, I'm gonna throw a deep route. Well, there's two safeties back there, and they're covered. Or they pick it off and then you slam the joystick down and you're mad. So everybody's got the answers when it don't work. Who knows?"

He also earlier joked that fans should "send in some plays," so there's that. And look, we're all in this together, because Portis also sort of wondered about the wisdom, or loyalty, or mindset of the media.

"I don't know who happy, I don't know [who are the ] Redskins fans in this media, I don't know who want us to win; I think it's all about just selling the story," he said. "And it get rough. You don't know who got your back, you don't know who to high five, you don't know who to give an exclusive to and sit down and talk with. I think it get rough just for everybody. But at the same time, this is what we ask for, this is the position we're in. We're in one of the best media places in the world, so we're gonna take fire, and hopefully we can prevail. If we go out and prove the naysayers wrong, then there's not a problem. It's only a matter of time before you've got to jump on the bandwagon and congratulate us and stop throwing us under the bus."

As for this week's exciting news that Portis is on Twitter, well, don't get your hopes up.

"No, not really," he said. "That's my new account, but it ain't me."



(washigtonpost.com)